In
Sweet Company:
Conversations with Extraordinary Women
about Living a Spiritual Life
by Margaret Wolff
Jossey-Bass, 2004
review
by Heidi
Schlumpf
If
the buzz about Tom Cruise’s Scientology and Madonna’s
dabbling in Kabbalah is any indication, people are dying to know
about the spiritual beliefs and practices of celebrities. Chicago
Sun-Times reporter Cathleen Falsani’s new book The
God Factor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) promises to go
“Inside the Spiritual Lives of Famous People” in interviews
with the likes of Melissa Etheridge, Tom Robbins and Anne Rice.
Two years before her, Margaret Wolff did the same thing—only
she focused on 14 women known for their spirituality or charitable
work rather than their singing or acting.
The best part of In Sweet Company
(Jossey-Bass, 2004) is the diversity of subjects chosen by Wolff.
A few have some name recognition, like death penalty activist Sister
Helen Prejean, actress Olympia Dukakis, bestselling author Riane
Eisler and dancer Katherine Dunham. Others may be well known in
their fields, such as psychologist Miriam Polster, organizational
consultant Margaret Wheatley and Episcopal priest Lauren
Artress. A few were clearly chosen for their accomplishments:
Rabbi Laura Geller was one of the first female rabbis in the U.S.,
Iraqi immigrant Zainab Salbi founded an organization to help women
in war-torn countries and Gail Williamson helps disabled people
become actors. Native American Twylah Hurd Nitsch, Hindu Sri Daya
Mata and Buddhist Le Ly Hayslip provide further religious and ethnic
diversity to the mix.
Each
interviewee has wisdom to share, and there are some real gems, especially
on the topics of adversity and suffering. When asked
if she has had any “dark nights of the soul,” Prejean,
who has walked with men to their deaths, responds that darkness
isn’t always a bad thing. “We are conceived and swim
in darkness until we are born,” she says. “Darkness
is fertile and fecund. It’s a womb. It brings interiority.”
Latina
children’s author Alma Flora Ada learned to embrace pain as
a teacher. “Pain does not alter the beauty of life, the magnificence
and mystery of life, and my gratitude for the mystery,” she
says.
Wheatley, who specializes in change management, sees value in chaos.
“Chaos can release your creative power in the same way that
necessity is the mother of invention,” she says. “When
things get extreme, when the old ways don’t work, that’s
when you are your most inventive. If you want to grow, chaos is
an indispensable part of the process.”
The
subtitle of In Sweet Company promises “Conversations
with Extraordinary Women about Living a Spiritual Life”—and
these interviews are indeed conversations. In fact, Wolff’s
voice is annoyingly omnipresent, each chapter introduced with her
description of how she chose the subject and her travel to the interview,
including how the setting up of her audio recording equipment. The
profiles would have been stronger, in my opinion, without the insertion
of her random thoughts and repetitive questions (Why did she keep
asking “What advice would you give others?” when so
many interviewees insisted they don’t give advice?).
In
her introduction, Wolff describes a serious car accident that left
her with some brain damage that affects her ability to think linearly.
If she is to be a main character in this collection of spiritual
women, she should have done it more overtly. But despite her intrusions
into these stories of extraordinary women, In Sweet Company
still offers more depth and meat than any profile of Tom Cruise
or Madonna.
Copyright
©2006 Heidi Schlumpf
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